


Papagena

by Anonymous



Category: Die Zauberflöte | The Magic Flute - Mozart/Schikaneder
Genre: F/M, Fate, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28930512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: She is not the last of her kind, after all, but perhaps she's already met her soulmate.
Relationships: Monostatos/Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Papagena/Papageno (Die Zauberflöte)
Collections: Anonymous





	Papagena

She was twelve years, seventy-one days, four hours, and nine minutes old when feathers started growing in her hair. She plucked them out, one by one, as she saw them appear, until her scalp felt raw and her floor was covered in a layer of iridescent greens and blues.

She was thirteen years, one hundred and eighty-three days, twelve hours, and eighteen minutes old when they came in on her hands and feet. She scratched until they bled.

She was fourteen years, fifteen hours, and eight minutes old when they began growing on her shoulders, spreading around to her clavicle like a shimmering collar and down her spine like a bridal veil.

She left them.

* * *

She was seventeen years, three hundred and sixty-four days, nineteen hours, and twenty-three minutes when Sarastro called her into the temple.

"You are not the last of your kind," he said, and her heart leapt with joy and fear.

"Do you know of my parents?" she asked. Sarastro was the only father she had ever known.

"Not your parents," he said, and her face fell. He reached out a hand to lift her chin, smiling as she looked up at him. "A Papageno."

"Pa-pa-ge-no," she said slowly, the word strangely unfamiliar.

"Papageno," Sarastro said. "He is more than just your kind. He is the other half of your soul."

"You mean—he is—" She ran a hand over her feathered hair. A single blue feather fluttered to the ground.

Then he would not find her ugly.

"How do you know this?"

He held up the sevenfold sun-circle, the talisman he had worn for so many years. "I have seen it. He will arrive here very soon. And then he must face his trial."

She feared for him, then. And in that fear she felt, very suddenly, a pang, a connection. Something pulling their hearts together.

Their destiny.

"May I see him?" she asked, eyeing the sun-circle.

_"No!"_

She flinched as he jerked the talisman away. It was presumptuous of her to ask—but this was the first sign of her own kind, something she had nearly stopped hoping for, and she wondered for a terrible moment how long Sarastro had known.

But he smiled again, and patted her feathered head. "Go to your room," he said. "I will tell you when you are needed."

* * *

Monostatos was there to greet her with his usual ravings.

"What on earth do you mean, you've seen the devil?"

"A man, in the princess Pamina's quarters—I don't know how he got there—a man covered in red and gold and—" He stopped a moment, and looked her up and down with piercing dark eyes. The lines and patterns covering his skin grew darker—suppressed emotion, or perhaps just a trick of the light. She had asked him once if they had appeared when he was twelve years, seventy-one days, four hours, and nine minutes old as well. He told her they were a curse he had been born with. He was the last of his kind, just like her. Except now she wasn't. Perhaps Sarastro had found a Monostatos for him?

"Feathers," he said.

"Covered in feathers?" Then her Papageno was here.

"Dear gods, am I so stupid? A feathered devil. A damned feathered devil like you."

He was angry at himself, not at her. He'd called her beautiful, once. Told her how lovely her feathers were when they sparkled in the sun. But he didn't go out in the sun anymore, and now he had found his princess.

She caught his arm as he ran out. "There is another of my kind!" she said. "Maybe there another of your kind as well."

He shook his head. "Do you think I want to look upon a woman as ugly as myself?"

"I—" Tears began to well up. "I only wish for your happiness."

"Then let me go," he said.

He didn't matter, she thought. He was not the other half of her soul.

* * *

When she found him, they were blindfolding him and taking him away. She tried to push past them, but they held her back. "It's not yet time," they said.

"He's not ready for the trials," she said. "Let me go to him! Let me help him!"

They shook their heads. "His trial is to find you."

She would find him first.

* * *

She was eighteen years and two minutes old when he rejected her.

She cried as they pulled her away. She grasped at the air that had once been the red and gold feathers of his chest. She had one, caught between her fingers. She let it go.

"He thinks I'm ugly," she said. He had been repulsed by her. He was like Monostatos; he didn't want a lover of his own kind.

Maybe he wasn't the other half of her soul, after all, if he couldn't feel her.

But— _old woman_ , he had called her. He didn't see her as she was. That was his test. To trust that she was the Papagena he had been promised, even if he couldn't see her. And she was eighteen years and seventeen minutes old when she realized that he wouldn't pass the trial alone.

* * *

She was eighteen years, four hours, and nine minutes old when Monostatos returned to her.

"I'm leaving," he said. "I am going to the Queen of the Night."

"But the Queen of the Night is Sarastro's enemy!"

He nodded.

"But Monostatos—"

He kissed her.

When he pulled away she could only stare. He smiled sadly. "You have your Papageno now," he said. "Pamina has rejected me; Sarastro has sent me away. What use does anyone have for me here?"

She was eighteen years, four hours, and thirteen minutes old when she wondered if he had ever loved her.

* * *

She was eighteen years, six hours, and thirty-four minutes old when Papageno saw her as she was. She screamed when they took her away again. "Why must you torment me?"

"You must find each other," they told her. "That is _your_ task."

But as she reached out, she realized that she couldn't feel him anymore. What did it mean for him to be the other half of her soul? Only that he was a bird, like her? And if their destiny had been broken somehow, how would she find him?

She was eighteen years, seven hours, and fifty-eight minutes old when she followed his bells.

* * *

She was eighteen years, three days, and nine minutes old when Monostatos came to her window. Papageno lay asleep on the bed beside her, feathers still ruffled. She wondered why the tapping hadn’t woken him, and then realized that there hadn’t been any. She had _felt_ Monostatos.

But Monostatos wasn't the last of her kind.

When she was eighteen years, three days, and thirteen minutes old, she opened the window.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. "Sarastro will kill you!"

Sarastro would do no such thing. He was forever giving second chances. How else was the Queen still alive? She had been stripped of her power, but not her spirit. She would continue fighting, and Monostatos would go back to her. Maybe she was the other half of his soul.

She pressed a hand to her womb, where she could sense that she already carried her first Papagena—her first child with her husband, her soul, her Papageno—and when she was eighteen years, three days, and nineteen and a half minutes old, she kissed Monostatos.

He jumped back.

"Our fates are different," she said.

"Fate does not control me," he said.

She was eighteen years, three days, and thirty-three minutes old when he left her.


End file.
